After nearly one year of kernel crashes, I finally found the 

stable configuration for Orange Pi Zero 3 as a 24/7 SDR server.

 

The critical discovery: legacy kernel 6.6.75-sunxi64 is the only

stable option. The current kernel crashes within hours under SDR load.

 

Additional fixes:

- Blacklist aw859a WiFi driver (causes kernel instability)

- Blacklist DVB modules for RTL-SDR

- Lock libairspyhfSupport.so with chattr +i (SpyServer/SoapySDR conflict)

- Mask systemd-networkd-wait-online

- CPU governor: schedutil

- usbcore.autosuspend=-1 for USB SDR dongles

 

Running 3 SDRs simultaneously: RTL-SDR Blog V4, Airspy HF+, 

dedicated ADS-B. 4 antennas via HMC241 GPIO RF switch.

30+ decoders. Full Android control.

 

Complete guide: https://ozcet.github.io/sdr-server-guide

moved to staging

Great job  I don't have time to replicate this, but I would like to see more photos, screenshots, and what you can do with so many SDRs

 

It's perfect to use an older kernel, if you don't need anything from a newer Linux (for example more stable Wifi, and resistive LCDs with Wayland)...

In your writeup, you could have included the dmesg or journalctl messages, just prior to the crash.

Sometimes, there's a confict between a new or changed kernel module and the module you want to use, and it causes crashes, or not being able to start Linux. Then you deactivate the module that gives you the problem.

 

Which services were disabled with sudo systemctl mask systemd-networkd-wait-online ? It sounds like you never want to start a network service automatically on boot.

 

I hope that the SoapySDR developers can fix the root issue, so that you don't need to lock a library .SO like that

 

I made a thread showing how to control GPIO with Python gpiod

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/33800-orange-pi-zero-3-gpio/#findComment-181191

Instead of using Opi.GPIO, which relies of sysfs (deprecated, and you can't use it in newer Linux)

 

Edited May 29May 29 by robertoj